ONR MURI: Bio-inspired Adaptive Sonar for Classification and Guidance in Complex Environments
Abstract
The motivation for this MURI is the performance advantage of echolocating animals over man-made sonar systems in complex, sonar gui"ded behavior. The experimental goal is to identify and characterize the biological implementation of wideband pulse or FM biosonar for sonar scene analysis and target classification in challenging surroundings. The computational goal is to develop a model of the neural mechanisms underlying animal biosonar that impacts the design of realistic technology to address naval sonar requirements. The" MURI team will collect new data (sound field reconstructions, behavioral performance, and neural representations) from bats that us"e wideband FM signals. We will propose parallel behavioral and non-invasive EEG experiments for implementation in bottlenose dolphins at SPAWAR Pacific. Experimental findings will feed into development of a comprehensive biosonar model that encompasses peripheral" dynamics for emission and reception, neural representation of targets, clutter suppression, bottom-up and top-down attention, and a"ctive sensing of sonar scenes. The model will be adapted for underwater target identification in cooperation with NUWC Newport. The" team of investigators at Brown, Johns Hopkins, Texas A&M, and Virginia Tech offers unmatched expertise on biosonar at multiple leve""ls of analysis, including reconstruction and analysis of acoustic fields, emission and receiving characteristics, quantitative analy""ses of behavioral performance in laboratory and field settings, neural imaging and neurophysiology, and modeling/algorithm developme""nt. These endeavors are indispensable for addressing theMURI Topic#10 goals. No real progress is possible without sustained, coordi""nated behavioral and neurophysiological research on captive echolocating animals. Furthermore, to model biosonar for technological p""urposes, use of generic auditory or attentional models would ignore too much research that reveals specific aspects of biosonar that" demonstrably contribute to effective real-time operation. The team members are uniquely qualified to advance the goals of this MURI program for translating knowledge about biosonar into innovative technologies. At the heart of this MURI project is a comprehensive" investigation of the behavioral strategies and neural mechanisms that operate in wideband biosonar, from broadcast emission, to pro""cessing and representation of echo scenes, including clutter suppression, and target classification. For translation into undersea w""arfare applications, this work represents a radically new approach to target detection, classification and localization. The resulti""ng bio-inspired, neurological-based approach will replace the standard processing stream of transmit, beamformfor receive, matched"" filter, detect, classify, track, and maneuver using fixed control strategies.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Sep 29, 2017
- Source ID
- N000141712736
Entities
People
- James A Simmons
Organizations
- Brown University
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy